Breastfeeding in Contemporary Society: Practices, Challenges, and Perspectives

  • Unique Paper ID: 202837
  • Volume: 12
  • Issue: 12
  • PageNo: 8979-8985
  • Abstract:
  • In most countries rates of breastfeeding fell sharply in the 20th century, especially among richer countries. This decline caused some concerns and there was a great deal of research carried out about breastfeeding and how it helps to protect the mother and child. Steps favoring breast-feeding helped launch many key world efforts: the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes in 1981 and the Innocenti Declaration on Breastfeeding in 1990. Such programs and others contributed to the betterment of breastfeeding practices. Meta-analyses of numerous individual studies have recently confirmed that breastfeeding significantly has many health benefits for infants and young children. These benefits vary but are greater for certain environmental, hygiene and socioeconomic circumstances. At the very least, in resource-limited areas, breastfeeding decreases the rates of diarrhea, respiratory infections, and mortality in children. It decreases the likelihood of ear infections, likely also decreases type 2 diabetes, overweight/obesity and may work to prevent type 1 diabetes in high-income areas. It is also associated with a small improvement in IQ. Breastfeeding decreases the chances of breast and ovarian cancers for mothers. The estimates in the Lives Saved Tool show that if unintiatable breastfeeding rate was 30 percent more common, approximately 823,000 child deaths and 22,000 women's deaths could be prevented.

Copyright & License

Copyright © 2026 Authors retain the copyright of this article. This article is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

BibTeX

@article{202837,
        author = {Dr. Pvanjana and Syeda Samsunahar and Sowmya .V.R and Prof. Kadali Sam Prasad and Mrs . Dhanya S},
        title = {Breastfeeding in Contemporary Society: Practices, Challenges, and Perspectives},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {12},
        pages = {8979-8985},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=202837},
        abstract = {In most countries rates of breastfeeding fell sharply in the 20th century, especially among richer countries. This decline caused some concerns and there was a great deal of research carried out about breastfeeding and how it helps to protect the mother and child. Steps favoring breast-feeding helped launch many key world efforts: the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes in 1981 and the Innocenti Declaration on Breastfeeding in 1990. Such programs and others contributed to the betterment of breastfeeding practices.
Meta-analyses of numerous individual studies have recently confirmed that breastfeeding significantly has many health benefits for infants and young children. These benefits vary but are greater for certain environmental, hygiene and socioeconomic circumstances. At the very least, in resource-limited areas, breastfeeding decreases the rates of diarrhea, respiratory infections, and mortality in children. It decreases the likelihood of ear infections, likely also decreases type 2 diabetes, overweight/obesity and may work to prevent type 1 diabetes in high-income areas. It is also associated with a small improvement in IQ. Breastfeeding decreases the chances of breast and ovarian cancers for mothers. The estimates in the Lives Saved Tool show that if unintiatable breastfeeding rate was 30 percent more common, approximately 823,000 child deaths and 22,000 women's deaths could be prevented.},
        keywords = {Breastfeeding, Exclusive breastfeeding, Initiation of breastfeeding, Barriers to breastfeeding, Benefits of breastfeeding},
        month = {May},
        }

Cite This Article

Pvanjana, D., & Samsunahar, S., & .V.R, S., & Prasad, P. K. S., & S, M. .. D. (2026). Breastfeeding in Contemporary Society: Practices, Challenges, and Perspectives. International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology (IJIRT), 12(12), 8979–8985.

Related Articles